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After living in Korea for shy a decade, I find myself back in England, penalized for my turned back, awaiting a move to Exeter, where I will study an MA in English, with focus on environmental studies. These days I am reading inveterately, owing to my no longer living without the means to buy books & books & books. My reading interest lie in contemporary philosophy, ecology, ecological philosophy, object orientated ontology & speculative realism. These ideas are leaching into my poetry & essays.

I am pleased with the response to this, I wasn’t sure how it would be received, but people seem to appreciate the inversion, which relieves me no end. I wanted Yoon Yong to be complex & insightful, but being pretty much the opposite of her it was very difficult to think how to do it. I am still worried whether I have helicopter landed myself into a lake of thin ice, we’ll see as we go forward.

I like the way you delved into the question of mutual perception here, Daniel. Perceived beauty/appearance, so in the mind, and quite changeable, although I’ve noticed for some people, it’s stuck, with mental formations that might come from childhood.

Yes, beauty isn’t necessarily rigid, I would argue that despite what advertising & Hollywood would have us believe, there isn’t a standard as such. At least I don’ t think so.
However, in my case you are correct about childhood formations of beauty, I always found Asian women attractive as a teenager, then I married a Korean & still think Asian women are (dare I say) more beautiful than Western women (slaps his own wrist).
I am still not really decided on whether personal standards of beauty are correct, as we move further away from the animal in ourselves. Let’s be honest we are such an anomaly to nature that we can perhaps reason this away, but then, how to form relationships without some gauge for determining a match? It’s not an easy question. I think best thing is to not have negative biases, & to accept your preferences as instinctual. Such a hard thing to talk about nowadays. I just don’t want to offend anyone.

I agree, Daniel, and is hard to talk about, especially in public. At dinner with my half-Latino family we let it fly. I think we’re all different and tend to base things on our own experiences, why wouldn’t we? I’ve seen it with “country” too. Some people so strongly attached to their home, it’s a part of them, and others, perhaps a little like me, more in the breeze.

Steve, I feel Daniel raises a question here that bares the soul to the core. I think we do feel a lack of attraction to other races by nature. In America the Civil Rights Movement and the willingness to treat minorities with respect has been a fight well fought. The vitriol the Right unleashes with their unmasked hatred of minorities and other language speaking people has made us lose valuable ground. It’s happening in Britain, too. Intolerance. As well as in India, Myanmar, Israel and the Middle East—there is an endless list of countries where hatred of the other cancels out civil behavior. Humanity has the ability to rise above it, unlike the chimpanzee. I lean toward the idea that hysteria is what has made us incapable of dealing with the feelings of fear of other people. We are reverting to a system of clans and tribes for a sense of security—this is bad.

TL;DR: Sometimes to overcome ‘racism’ it’s necessary to raise the “other” and their culture above our own. It’s the lack of this attitude that is eroding human kindness. Each one is fooling themselves thinking they are better than every one else.

I mostly agree, Pablo. Everywhere, empathy is disappearing, the greyscale, the complexity of the truth is lost, in every group. My own experience about “lack of attraction” by nature is, however, different. I think it’s often a very fluid and variable thing.

“ There, I am desperately free and naive; but knowing this oh dear happiness, dear misery; there is no distinctive sign except that one tearing one’s heart, and a smile destined to nobody(...)" E.Stachura